


The Maze

by DashFlintceschi



Series: Mythological Creatures Alphabet Challenge [10]
Category: Bring Me The Horizon, You Me At Six
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:14:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2206692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DashFlintceschi/pseuds/DashFlintceschi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh wakes up hung over and confused, which only gets worse when he finds the note on his fridge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Maze

**Author's Note:**

> J is for Jinn.
> 
> I've been informed that parts of this remind my best friend of the Saw films, I was actually inspired by the episode of Supernatural that also has Jinn in it, Episode 20 of season 2, 'What Is and What Should Never Be'. Obviously, this doesn't follow the same vein as the episode, only takes a few setting ideas and description of Jinn.

When Josh wakes up from a heavy night of drinking with his band mates, he looks around his living room and wonders what the fuck they got up to. The living room is trashed, and his band mates are nowhere to be seen. He chugs several cups of tea to stave off his hangover, then starts cleaning up, grousing to himself about bastard band mates, fucking off without helping him. He’s almost done when he sees it. He dumps another armful of rubbish in the bin and turns to go back to the living room when it catches his eye. He has a lot of stuff stuck to his fridge, but he knows every last one, and the piece of paper stuck on there is definitely new.

He assumes it’s his band mates excuse for buggering off without helping and plucks it from under the fridge magnet. He frowns as he reads it, trying to figure out if it’s a joke or not.

_‘We have taken your friends, come to the abandoned warehouse on the North bank of the river Wey to get them back,’_ He snorts to himself, it must be them, there’s loads of abandoned warehouses along the banks of the Wey, if someone had actually taken them, there would be more information than that.

He wanders into the living room and scoops up his phone, then flops down onto the couch and dials Matt’s number. It rings for ages before Matt answers, moaning weakly.

“Go home and pass out again, did you?” Josh laughs, but he’s slightly worried, he’s never heard Matt make a noise like that before, no matter how drunk he was.

“I don’t know where I am. I’m tied up, I think, and my neck hurts. There’s weird people all around and… I can see the park from a window…” Matt moans, and Josh starts to freak the fuck out, but he calms himself down and rationalises that it’s probably part of this prank of theirs.

“Right, I think I know where you are, I’ll be there in twenty,” he replies with a huff, and hangs up, looking around himself for his trainers, before he realises he’s still wearing them. He groans and heads for the door. He’s too hung over for this shit.

It takes a few tries, but the fifth warehouse he looks in is the right one. He has to wander around it for a few minutes to be sure, but there’s no doubting it’s the right one, and he realises it’s not a prank, when he looks into one of the rooms and sees Dan, deathly pale, held up by rope around his wrists, an IV stand next to him holding an IV connected to Dan’s neck, slowly draining the blood from his body.

He rushes over to Dan, but freezes halfway, when a gangly, tattoo covered form steps out of the shadows to stand in front of Dan.

“They knew you’d come. We weren’t so sure,” he comments, his voice light, yet with a heavy weight to it. It was the voice of someone who’d been alive for far too long.

“Who are you, and what do you want with us? And who’s ‘we’?” Josh asks hoarsely, and the man smiles, clearly, Josh is asking the right questions.

“We are Jinn, though I suppose you would know us as ‘genies’,” he tells him, motioning with his hands as four more men creep out of the dark, covered in the same swirling tattoos and with the same weight of the ages in their eyes. “As for what we want with your friends, they are simply an incentive for you to help us,” he adds, and Josh frowns.

“You could have just asked, I would have helped if I could,” he insists, and the man smiles.

“We needed to be sure. And you are the only one that can help. You are the only one we have found born with a strong enough imagination, yet a strong enough foundation with reality, to survive The Maze,” he replies, and Josh frowns.

“‘The Maze?” He asks, and the man’s smile turns sad.

“A maze of the mind. My brother is lost within it, and we need you to retrieve him. I know you can bring Tom back to us,” he urges, and Josh eyes Dan over the man’s shoulder.

“Only if you stop draining blood from them,” he bargains, but the man shakes his head.

“I can’t do that. We’ve set the needles to drain their blood at a certain speed, they have the same amount of time left as Tom does. This way, we can ensure that you will retrieve Tom as fast as possible, and that you will not leave The Maze without him,” he insists, and Josh nods.

“Fine, how do I get to this maze?” He asks resignedly, and the man smiles.

“Just hold still,” he murmurs, reaching out to Josh, his arm enveloped in blue light. The second his fingertips brush Josh’s shoulder, Josh’s knees buckle as he loses consciousness. 

When Josh wakes up, he’s lying on the ground at the beginning of the maze. He struggles to his feet and staggers forward, leaning against the stone wall of the maze for support as he tries to shake off the dizziness that’s clouding his mind. He manages to clear his mind as he gets to a crossroad in the path. There’s no indication of where any of the paths lead, but he remembers the guy saying something about imagination, and takes a chance. 

_‘Tom, can you hear me?’_ He asks, reaching out with his mind, and he’s almost immediately rewarded. 

_‘I can hear you, who are you?’_ A weak, unfamiliar voice responds in his head, and he grins in triumph. 

_‘My name’s Josh, your brother sent me in to get you. Which path did you take at the first crossroad?’_ He explains, and Tom’s quiet for a moment as he thinks back.

_‘I went left, then took the first right after that, then straight on for quite a while,’_ he responds finally, and Josh nods to himself as he turns left and starts walking, taking the first right he sees.

_‘Alright, I’m on my way, I’ll count the paths I pass and keep you posted,’_ he replies, mentally counting the two paths he passes as he says this.

He walks for a while, telling Tom when he’s passed ten, then twenty adjoining paths, but Tom tells him to keep going straight, then turn right when he gets to the courtyard with the big fountain. The path curves slightly, then comes out into a courtyard with a huge fountain, and Josh figures this must be the one Tom meant, and crosses the courtyard to the path on the right. He’s barely taken two steps onto the path, though, when a zombie appears, blocking the path, and Josh panics.

_‘Tom, there’s a fucking zombie, what do I do?’_ He asks frantically, and Tom’s laughter rings in Josh’s mind.

_‘It’s not real, it’s an allusion that takes the form of your worst fear, to scare you off, just walk through it, it can’t hurt you,’_ Tom assures him, and Josh is a bit doubtful, but he trusts Tom on this, so he takes a deep breath and rushes forward, sighing in relief when he passes through it with no problem.

_‘Thanks, anything else I should know about?’_ He asks as he continues at a slower pace.

_‘Yeah, but I can’t warn you about them before you get to them, only help you once you’re there,_ Tom tells him, and Josh sighs.

_‘Fair enough, where next?_ He asks, and Tom hums in thought.

_‘Third left, fifth right, second right, then straight on from then on,’_ he rattles off, and Josh repeats it back to him twice to make sure he’s got it right before he sets off.

When he gets to the third left, he turns on to the path and stops. It’s a dead-end, with words carved into the stone.

**When did Max lose his virginity?** There are three options below it:

**At the age of 15**

**At the age of 19**

**I refuse to answer**

Josh doesn’t have to think about it, he’s always been a stickler for not telling other people’s secrets, so, once he checks with Tom on how to give his answer, he presses his hand against the last answer.

Expecting to be stuck there, he jumps in surprise when the wall slides away to reveal the next section of the path. There are three more walls, all with questions about his friends, **What is Dan’s biggest fear? What is Chris most ashamed of? Why does Matt insist on going to the same chicken restaurant every time?** Each time, he answers the same, refusing to answer, and every time, the wall slides away without a problem.

As Josh is walking away from the last one, he asks Tom about it.

_‘It’s a test of trust, your friends trust you with their secrets, and you passed the test because you honoured that trust,’_ Tom explains, and Josh is dismayed to realise that he sounds weaker than before, and quickens his pace.

He walks for quite a while before anything else stops him. This time, as he approaches, the path splits into two, one completely clear, the other blocked by Dan, his clothes ripped and bloody, his skin bruised and slashed, blood sliding out of the corner of his mouth.

“Take the easy path, I‘ll be alright,” Dan rasps weakly, and Josh rolls his eyes.

“Shut the fuck up and come on,” he huffs, grabbing Dan around the waist and pulling him along the path with him. After a few minutes, they come to a door marked ‘exit’, and Dan shakes off Josh’s grip.

“Go, I’ll be alright, and next time, take the easy path,” he insists, then slips through the door.

The same happens three more times, with Max, Matt and Chris, all of them trying to make him take the easy path. As he’s dragging Chris towards the last exit door, he figures out what’s happening, but asks Tom anyway, to be sure.

_‘They weren’t really my friends, were they?’_

_‘No, they were illusions again. It was a test of loyalty, your love and loyalty for them wouldn’t let you leave them behind, so you passed,’_ he explains, and Josh hums to himself, wondering what else is waiting for him.

Nothing else stops him until he gets to Tom, though. He gets to the centre of the maze, and grins when he sees Tom sitting in the middle of the courtyard. He goes to rush over to him, but a chasm opens between them, flames bursting up from within. He jumps back and looks at Tom in terror.

“What the fuck do I do?” He shouts across, and Tom smiles soothingly.

“It’s a test of faith, you have to jump, and have faith in me to catch you!” He shouts back, and Josh gulps, but doesn’t hesitate. He takes a deep breath as he backs up, then runs forward and launches himself forward. He feels as though he’s been in the air too long, and he’s failed, but then arms grab him around the waist and pull him against a chest, and the flames disappear, the maze disappears, and he’s back in the room he left his friends in, Tom still holding him to his chest tightly.

“I knew you could do it,” he whispers into Josh’s hair, and Josh pulls away, looking around frantically for his friends. He finds them a few feet away, no longer having their blood drained. In fact, they’re lounging on couches, enjoying mugs of tea and grinning proudly at him, looking no worse for the wear.

“This whole fucking thing was a test, wasn’t it?” Josh snarls, and their grins slide away.

“We couldn’t tell you, mate,” Max replies, attempting to placate him, but it doesn’t work.

“What the fuck could be so important, that you’d put me through all that shit?!” He demands, and Matt points to Tom.

“He is. They mate for life, but if their life mate is human, that mate has to complete the maze, to prove themselves worthy of the Jinn. If anyone had told you before you went in, Tom would’ve died,” he explains, and Josh seems to deflate as the anger seeps out of him, but then a thought occurs to him.

“And what if I don’t want to be his life mate?” He demands indignantly, and Tom’s brother smiles sadly.

“That’s your choice, but Tom will die if you reject him,” he tells him, and Josh starts to feel both trapped and guilty at the same time, so wrapped up in his thoughts that he jumps harshly when Tom’s fingers brush his cheek.

“I don’t mind if you reject me, all I want is for you to think about it. I could make you happier than you could ever imagine, but if you don’t want me, well… I’m really, _really_ old, I don’t mind if you reject me,” he insists softly, his eyes gentle and full of love, which takes Josh aback slightly. He considers it for a minute, but then he realises that he’s never seen that much love in anyone’s eyes, and he nods.

“I accept you as my life mate,” he announces, and Tom grins, pulling him into a crushing hug. All Josh can focus on is the thumbs up and cheesy grins his friends are giving him. They’re surprisingly good friends, for such weird bastards.


End file.
